


Set My Own Pace By Stealing The Show

by Thingsareswinging



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thingsareswinging/pseuds/Thingsareswinging
Summary: After a long day at work, Sokka arrives home, watches an indifferent wuxia film, then goes to bed.
Relationships: Azula/Sokka (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32
Collections: Avatar Rarepair Exchange 2021





	Set My Own Pace By Stealing The Show

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drenched](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drenched/gifts).



The key turned in the lock and he opened the door like he was falling through it, the rain lashing down around him as he tumbled into the apartment, slamming the door shut, putting his back to it and leaning into a sigh. He closed his eyes, listening for the soft sounds of movement from the other room, the sounds of the television babbling and someone shifting their weight on the sofa.

Yep. All present and correct. His eyes fluttered closed for a second, and a smile tugged at his lips, before he straightened up and began working his feet out of his shoes.

He tossed his keys into the small dish by the door, unslung his bag from his shoulder and walked with it held in one hand, padding into the living room, eyes barely flicking to the coffee table at all.

“Hey,” he said, quiet enough to not compete with the film. “I brought dinner.”

Azula’s eyes flicked up to meet his, and she nodded to the space next to her. 

“You look… damp,” she drawled. She, of course, looked like royalty. It was completely unfair.

“Well I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the weather outside is _amazing_. I got takeout,” he added, flipping open his bag and pulling out containers, one of which he handed to her as he flopped heavily down next to her, droplets of rain cascading off him in an arc. She leaned back just enough to make it clear she was making fun of him, and he held in a laugh. 

“So,” he said, separating his chopsticks while gesturing with his food at the screen, where two men in bad wigs were trying to kick each other to death, “what’re we watching?”

Her brow furrowed in brief concentration. “You know, I’m not sure.”

* * *

He leaned back, reassuringly solid, certain in his ease, one foot tucked carelessly under his leg. 

“I got a letter today.”

He almost certainly knew already, but that wasn’t the point of telling him. There was-

Vulnerability was a hard habit to learn. It still struck her as odd that he wouldn’t care if she failed.

“Oh? Wanna talk about it?”

No. No, because talking about it made it real, meant there would have to be dates and appearances and _interviews_ and-

“Not tonight.”

“Okay.”

And he understood what she meant. He knew what it meant that there were things that stuck in her throat, even years later. They had a language of half-words and sentences that didn’t finish, but he could read her with a glance. And she’d figured him out years ago.

* * *

The film ended, like all films of that nature did, with the young man being crowned Emperor. Azula didn’t bother to flatten her disdain.

“I have to say, anyone who spent twenty years living as a recluse in a temple is _unlikely_ to have much to offer on, for example, fiscal policy.”

Sokka snorted, as he began deftly stacking the refuse from their meal. “For all you know their Treasury Secretary is a magic vase-ghost that you have to kick in order to determine interest rates. He might be just the guy.”

Azula sighed, long-sufferingly. “If you’re going to bring up Magical Realism again I will set you on fire.”

“I’m just saying! The head of the interim government was a sorcerer that turned into a bat.”

“Speaking of which, I talked to Toph the other day.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Sokka exhaled, mock-scandalised. “I am horrified she’s not here to listen to you talk like that.”

* * *

Outside, the storm picked up in the gathering dark. The apartment was a halo of warm light, as Sokka moved into the kitchen, flicking lights on as he went, humming tunelessly to himself as he started the process of washing the dishes.

In a way, this hadn’t been what she’d expected from her twenties. But what _had_ she expected from her twenties? Nothing. The future hadn’t been something she’d been encouraged to think about.

Her teenage years had been spent learning how to survive them, and they had left her with skills that were worse than useless. In her more maudlin moments, she felt a hideous kind of kinship with those absurd fish that had adapted to life in the deepest and least hospitable parts of the ocean, surviving in pressures that would crush anything else. If you took them out of the pressurised depths, they inflated, transformed into a child’s scrawl of a miserable face, and died.

In a way, it was a sign of growth. Time lent ironic distance- fifteen-year-old Azula would have almost certainly killed anyone that compared her to a blobfish. Maybe Sokka’s sense of humour was catching.

* * *

There was a kind of smug pleasure in sharing a bed with a firebender on a cold night. Azula was a living hot water bottle. The letter meant it probably wasn’t going to be a snuggle kind of evening, but that wasn’t a huge deal- it was gonna be the price of doing things ‘the right way’, that was all.

Aang and him had had all the arguments they were going to have about ‘the right way’. Sokka had always been pretty sure he was going to lose, but he did think it was good to have on record that he had _absolutely_ been in favour of Ozai facing a more vigilante kind of justice than was currently processing him. Still, Zuko and Azula had come to a decision, and their opinion was what mattered here.

Sokka liked doing things for people, and while he wouldn’t do it when they explicitly didn’t want him to, ‘I would have absolutely pushed your dad down a flight of stairs given the opportunity’ was a sentiment worth putting out there, he felt.

Especially since, in a world where Ozai _didn’t_ accidentally tragically fall down an eight-storey stairwell while brushing his teeth, he could cause letters to be sent that meant Azula stared absently at a wall all evening.

* * *

Azula was good in a crisis. Knew the rhythm of panic, knew that there would always be a moment where everyone else would be wasting their energy trying to marshall the correct emotional response to disaster, a moment when she shone. 

The problem was the other ninety percent of her life, as it turned out.

Sokka was already in bed, half-heartedly holding a book, and she still felt bizarrely undeserving of the way his eyes lit up when she entered the room. It felt like she was tricking him, somehow.

He didn’t ever seem to _want_ anything from her- he set aside time and energy and did things for her just because, and that was enough for him, apparently. If there was a catch, she hadn’t found it yet.

Azula had tried all kinds of different ways for making people stay, only to find that she hadn’t been good at any of them.

She slid under the covers as Sokka closed his book with a relieved snap, and set it on the bedside table. As she reached for the light, he scrunched up, curling in on himself, and she felt grateful. He was ... _cuddly_ , and while that had its place, there were times she needed to carefully ration touch.

“G’night,” he murmured, already half-asleep.

“Good night,” she replied, and turned over.


End file.
